The Nile

    The ancient Greek writer Herodotus once described Egypt-with some envy-as'the gift of the Nile'. The Egyptians depend on the river for food, for water and for life. The Ancient Egyptians were able to control and use the Nile, creating the earliest irrigation systems and developing a prosperous {#blank#}1{#/blank#}.

    Snaking through the deserts, the Nile would flood almost {#blank#}2{#/blank#} each year in June. Once the water subsided, a rich deposit of sand was left behind, making an excellent topaoil. Seeds were sown, yielding wheat, barley, beans, lentils and leeks. Drought could spell disaster for the Egyptians, so during the dry seasons, they dug basins and channels to deliver water to their land. They also devised simple channels to transfer water at the peak of the flood.

    An early system of {#blank#}3{#/blank#} a Nilometer, was used to de determine the size of the floods. Later, during the New Kingdom, a lifting system called a shaduf was used to raise water from the river--{#blank#}4{#/blank#} to the way in which a well is used today.

    The Egyptians took up some of the earliest trading missions. Without a(n) {#blank#}5{#/blank#} system they exchanged goods, bringing back timber, precious stones, pottery, spices and animals. Their efforts in medicine were also {#blank#}6{#/blank#} advanced: surgeons performed operations to remove cysts(囊肿). Mummification gave them great understanding of the human body-yet they also relied heavily on various medicines to prevent disease, and discoveries were often confused with superstition(迷信). And while a great deal of time was dedicated to {#blank#}7{#/blank#} the Egyptians thought the stars were gods.

    By the 16th century Egypt was under the Ottoman Empire until Britain seized control in 1882. What is now mostly Arabic Egypt only won {#blank#}8{#/blank#} from Britain after World War Ⅱ. The Suez Canal, opened in 1869, {#blank#}9{#/blank#}the country as a center for world transportation. But it, and the completion of the Aswan High Dam in 1971 {#blank#}10{#/blank#} the ecology of the Nile, which now struggles to satisfy the country's rapidly growing population, currently more than 76 million-the largest in the Arab world.

    A recent troubling study showed that "fake news" spread significantly faster, deeper and more broadly than the truth, and the effect is even more remarkable when regarding news as opposed to reporting on natural disasters, finance or science. So how can we encourage individuals to seek {#blank#}1{#/blank#} online content? Leading scholars are trying hard to deal with this question.

    Processing new information requires a considerable mental effort, especially when that information seems to conflict with your {#blank#}2{#/blank#} worldview. It takes the {#blank#}3{#/blank#} to admit you may be wrong. But with a great amount of conflicting information available, who's to say what's actually true and what's false? If you can't tell, why not just make life easy and go with what supports your current beliefs?

    So what {#blank#}4{#/blank#} do we have? Many suggest that we can {#blank#}5{#/blank#} the issue by reforming adult behavior, but this is aiming too far from source. An alternative solution is using early education to help individuals recognize these problems and {#blank#}6{#/blank#} critical thinking to the information they deal with. Currently, there is a push in the US to include Internet information classes into primary and secondary school curriculums. The movement, which has received some support, aims to make fact-checking seem like second {#blank#}7{#/blank#} to individuals at an early age.

    Primary and secondary school are {#blank#}8{#/blank#} to be supplying students with the skills they need to develop into productive and informed members of our society. As our society develops, the curriculum we are teaching our students needs to develop as well.

    The Internet is an amazing tool, but to use it most effectively we have to accept its benefits while also understanding the ways in which it makes us dangerously {#blank#}9{#/blank#}. If students are still learning the practices such as writing in school, shouldn't they be learning how to {#blank#}10{#/blank#} the Internet responsibly as well?

Can a precise word total ever be known? No, says Professor David Crystal, known chiefly for his research in English language studies and author of around 100 books on the {#blank#}1{#/blank#}. "It's like asking how many stars there are in the sky. It's impossible to answer," he said.

An easier question to answer, he {#blank#}2{#/blank#}, is the size of the average person's vocabulary. He suggests taking a sample of about 20 or 30 pages from a medium-sized dictionary, which {#blank#}3{#/blank#} about 100,000 entries or 1,000 or 1,500 pages.

Tick off the ones you know and count them. Then {#blank#}4{#/blank#} that by the number of pages and you will discover how many words you know. Most people vastly underestimate their {#blank#}5{#/blank#}.

"Most people know half the words—about 50,000—easily. A reasonably educated person about 75,000 and a really cool, smart person well, maybe all of them but that is rather {#blank#}6{#/blank#}. An ordinary person, one who has not been to university say, would know about 35,000 quite easily."

The formula can be used to calculate the number of words a person uses, but a person's active language will always be less than their {#blank#}7{#/blank#}, the difference being about a third.

Prof Crystal says exposure to reading will obviously expand a person's vocabulary but the level of a person's education does not {#blank#}8{#/blank#} decide things. "A person with a poor education perhaps may not be able to read or read much, but they will know words and may have a very {#blank#}9{#/blank#} vocabulary about pop songs or motorbikes. I've met children that you could {#blank#}10{#/blank#} as having a poor education and they knew hundreds of words about skateboards that you won't find in a dictionary."